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Not gonna lie. That is hella hype. Although it does make it harder to target hardware as a game dev. It does however make the whole ecosystem way better.
Hope they introduce some minimum hardware requirements that a hand-held has to have for it to be steamos compatible. That way devs can target that hardware and it will run on any steamos verified device
Minimum hardware requirements are likely to be performance (at relevant minimum resolution) and battery life at least on the same level as the current Steam Deck.
I don't think that's feasible. The current set of handhelds have the OG Deck at the bottom end of the performance tier anyway, that'll only become relevant if and when a Deck 2 releases, and at that point it will be the same problem to solve with or without third party hardware.
You are assuming that all non steam deck handhelds are going to be better than the steamdeck performance wise. While this may be the case with the ROG Ally I don't think it holds true with all handhelds so there is possibility for a hand-held with less performance than the steamdeck to be verified
It's 100% true of all Windows handhelds released after the OG Steam Deck, yes. This is not because the Deck is bad, it's because they all are running the same two or three APUs, all built on the same AMD architecture. If it came after the Deck, it's a 6800U with a 780M or slightly better than that, and no new handhelds going forward will launch with anything significantly worse than that.
So beyond retroactive support for first-gen AyaNeo or GPD handhelds that are older than the Deck, I don't think this is a major concern. And if you're on one of those, which were incredibly expensive at launch compared to the Deck, I think you should be pretty well used to underwhelming performance by the time SteamOS verifies them, if ever.
It's really not a realistic scenario. Our floor for performance is well established and this is coming so far down the line that we shouldn't expect to return to it at this point.
What about someone targeting a handheld spec that actually fits in your pocket? Surely that would be weaker.
Would it?
The GPD Win 4 is roughly the size of a thick PSVita and that ran on a 6800U as well and they released newer ones all the way up to 8800U without increasing the size. Ditto for the Ayaneo Flip, which is still chunky but it's clamshell, so I guess you could cargo pants it.
Ayaneo also makes the Air, which is supposed to be exactly that, and I think there is a model that targets a smaller APU and is super thin, but the next in line already jumps to the 7840U and is comparable to the Deck. I have to imagine that even small PC handhelds will match that performance going forward.
There are pocketable handhelds out there, but they're generally Android-based, which makes a lot more sense. I think for PC we'll see people trying to hit this level of performance in a compact form factor, but I'd be shocked if people tried to go back to sub-6800 performance on PC on new devices.
Again, the point of the Deck is standardized performance, and it quickly became exactly that. Things will get messier once the Deck is replaced by a higher spec, but in the meantime, if it's certified for baseline Deck you're either probably fine or in such a tiny niche (you own 5840u version of the AyaNeo Air? Who are you) that you probably know what you can do with it.
Hi. I'm the guy that wants a low-spec model that fits in my pocket. I exist. Just gimme something that can run my favorite 2D indie games and I'm happy.
I bought a Miyoo Mini Plus last year and ended up loving it far more than my Deck, which is actually just gathering dust still. And now I dream of seeing SteamOS in that size.
But nothing you're describing will fit in that kind of form factor. So if you want to enforce minimum specs, you're really telling me I can't have my dream handheld.
To be clear, I'm not advocating to enforcing a minimum spec. I'm saying that there isn't a need to add a performance rating to a SteamOS certification or to the SteamOS compatibility badges because if they're all based on Steam Deck performance they will be valid for all the other certified devices by default. At least until a Deck 2 is released.
I love small handhelds. The Retroid Pocket Mini is great (shame about the bad scaling on the screen). But those are typically Android handhelds for a reason. I don't think a PC handheld in that form factor is worth it. You can just run Linux on ARM and get the form factor without the whole thing running like a hot potato for 15 minutes before it dies. There's a lot of native ports of small PC indie games in that space and ongoing work for per-game port support, too.
Now, all that could change if the upcoming mobile chips we get are great at running at very low wattages and somehow get amazing power management options on the software side out of nowhere. But... I just don't think that's a priority for anybody specifically because ARM chips already have a well established ecosystem to give you basically what you want without having to tie the X64 platform in knots for the sake of running this over Steam instead of Android.
An Android device doesn't run my Steam library.
I'm aware of Portmaster, but that's a manual process that is only possible for certain engines. Whereas SteamOS can just run all my games.
I would not be shocked to find that people are willing to go back to sub 6800 performance in exchange for something the size of those Android devices. There are tons of 2D and low spec 3D games that are very popular that they would run, and pocket sized handheld x64 machines are a niche to fill to stand out from the Steam Deck.
This is cool, more options are better.
It does, however, make me REALLY want Valve to add official third party library support. I have thousands of games on GOG and hundreds on Epic. I don't need them to officially support all of them, but at least I need a better approach to integrating them than fiddling with Heroic or Lutris in desktop mode.
Playnite integrates all launchers into one with a controller friendly UI but it's only available on Windows.
Yeah, there are a bunch of alternatives. I don't even think it's as much of a problem on Desktop Linux, where having Steam and Heroic/Lutris going at the same time isn't a big deal.
But all the hoops to integrate other launchers inside Steam Game Mode and the friction in trying to use them reliably in that environment are just not mainstream viable or functional. As long as that works the way it currently does I'll default my handleds to autobooting into Windows Big Picture instead.
Which, by the way, is totally a thing you can do. People always act like there's a much bigger gap than there actually is between those two options. You mostly only lose the well integrated display and power controls, which may be a bigger or smaller deal depending on what your Windows handheld uses instead.
I 100% agree with you on your first 2 paragraphs. I really love my Deck, but God damn is it annoying getting things like Battle.net, GOG, and/or Epic games working inside of it in Game Mode sometimes.
Apps like NonSteamLaunchers or Heroic help a lot, but they don't always work smoothly. Like I had the itch to try out WoW again this week after not playing for numerous years (I'd heard War Within was really good). Getting battle.net installed and working within Game Mode was a major pain in the ass. I'd done it a few months ago for Diablo 4 without much headache, but somehow when I tried launching BNet last night, it wouldn't. NonSteamLauncher's BNet integrator also wasn't working for whatever reason. So I had to do a few workarounds before I got one that worked.
It's scenarios like that where I truly wish Valve would try harder to work with companies like Epic or Blizzard to get better native integration. I know Epic is a competitor, but really it'd be beneficial for both companies to have good integration between each other. I'm much more inclined to buy games on Epic if I can easily play them on my Deck, and I'm more lore inclined to stay within Steam's ecosystem if I'm not constantly encountering these annoying obstacles. It will likely never happen, but I can dream
As for your last paragraph, are you referring to wiping your Deck and just installing Windows? I've been hesitant to do that due to how often I use the sleep mode function in games. I've tried using sleep mode on my desktop PC like that when I can't save a game and I need to stop to do other stuff, and it's really hit or miss if a game will resume without issue after waking. Have you had any problems? Also, how is your battery life impacted? The Deck has crazy good battery life, and I attribute a lot of that to how efficient the underlying OS is with power management, but maybe I'm wrong. Also, do you have issues with drivers? The APU on the Deck is a custom AMD chipset, but have people ported the drivers for it over to Windows now?
I want SteamOS on desktop 😅
Check out Bazzite. It even has a GNOME variant.
I second Bazzite. It's been a phenomenal experience on my laptop.
Interestingly, I was messing with BoxBuddy a week or two ago, and looking at what distroboxes were available to install, and there's a SteamOS container on there. Not sure if it's official or what, but I was able to run games on it (though absolutely unnecessary).
What are you hoping to get from SteamOS that you aren't able to get from any other Linux distro?
I just think it'd be neat to have a gaming Linux distro, made by a company that distributes games. Maybe it will be a standard distro for game developers to test their games.
No system management. A set once and forget it system, ala console style, but with the potential of off the shelf high power components for PC games on the living room is a quality proposition.
Bazzite as HTPC and you can do that already, if you want to test your dream.
I use my Deck docked regularly. In desktop use I see no benefit over Fedora and alike.
I'm hoping to build my first Desktop soon and i'm praying that Valve gets an Official SteamOS release out by then. I'd kill to have it.
I’d kill to have it
US army: Heyyy
I bought a Miyoo Mini Plus last year, just an impulse buy because it was on sale dirt cheap. Ended up liking it so much I wish I'd bought a more expensive model with analog sticks.
Meanwhile, my Deck gathers dust because it's just too bulky too fill the void left behind by the GBC/GBA/DS I grew up on.
First manufacturer to get SteamOS running on a form factor that fits in my pocket gets my entire bank account. Doesn't have to be beefy, just needs to run all my favorite 2D indie games.
I bet there will be phones or tablets that will get this through the community.
Let's see what MS has to say about that. Although they won't say anything officially, of course. But they'll certainly try to prevent this sort of thing from catching on from behind the scenes.
Back in Balmers days there would have been a mysterous briefcase men suggesting adjusted prices for all future MS involvement.
This is the only thing that could push me to upgrade from my steamdeck. SteamOS is so slick.
I'm currently running Bazzite but have been thinking about picking up an ROG Ally X for my husband. I think it having steam OS would be better for him in general. Hope this is available soon.
Get him an OLED Steam Deck instead. I don't know why anyone would get a ROG, especially if you're just going to put SteamOS on it.
Ngl, even though I am happy about this, ill prob just stick to bazzite, and just move anything else thats "powered by steamOS" to it as well. And Windows. I am simply too much a sucker for the quality of life stuff on it, like ROM data taken from the file
What makes Bazzite so much better to use on a Deck versus SteamOS? It doesn't seem any different than just using Remote Play/Moonlight/whatever and streaming from your main gaming rig?